The Palatka daily news. (Palatka, Fla.) 1884-1888, 1887-05-24
The New South and the Old.

jefferson Davis and Raphael Semmes
are types of those men who are honored
by the South as she honors those who
fill the graves which dot he. landscapes.
With heart and soul they adored the
glories of a setting sun, but they pos
sessed not the faith or elasticity of tenn
per which saw in the luminary of
another day the same orb they had
watched with fearful eyes as it sank
amid the storm clouds of defeat. 1t is
true that, like the sun of York, the
promise of the new era was obscured by
gloom, and the South might also have
taken for her legend, ''Invitis nubibus.
Others sold the place they had won in
history and our hearts for filthy dross,
and among these the South still wells her
eyes when she hears the names of Beau
regard and Early and Longstreet and
Mosby.
But there are still others whose swords,
however bright, must show dim, like
that of Washington, when contrasted
with victories won in peace over self and
ce-disappointment and sor-
row. These are the true sons of the old
South, the fathers of the new, before
whom we bow in deepest love and rev.
erance. At their head stands Lee
among these immortals are found the
rank and file of our old soldiers and the
men who, in war or peace, have always
challenged for the South the admiration
of the world,
When Jefferson Davis spoke at Meri-
dian, lately, before the Mississippi Press
Association, he was answered by the
Hon. Thos. III. Woods, who followed Da-
Wis when his State seceded-who fol-
lowed Lee from the beginning to the
bitter end in Virginia-who still followed
Lee after Appomattox and who is
one of the fathers of the New South as
he was a worthy son of the old time.
The utterances of such man are worthy
of careful attention and we have obtain
ed his speech that we might give it to
our readers as embodying the best
thought of our section for the present
and the future:
MIR. Chairman, Ladies and Gentle
of passionate Recollection sweeps the
memo-y at the mer ion of the name :?
How every true heart beats and throbs
in the remembrance of the strength and
glory which work every part OF the char
acter and career of this immortal man.
Tie briefest retrospect of his life unveils
to our eyes the chiefest resplendencies
which brighten our countrys history for
fifty years past. His history and his
country's history are SO indissolubly in
terwoven as to make one harmonious
perfect and indescribably thrilling
whole. His life makes a mighty part
of the life of the Republic
Soldier, Statesman; defender of the
rights of the Southe Il States The SEN
tim ent itself epitomizes. in the tersest
phrase, his highest euloglum. and stirs
the blood like the blast of trumpet
From the day when he began the life of
young soldier ON the plains, now half "A
century ago, to that awful crowning pc
riod, when, amid the appalling roar of
civil war. he stood serene. lofty. unbe nd
ing, the chosen chief of struggling mil
hons-what stuE a1dous record. What
a life, beginning in trying lily ON for
eign soil when. with his Mississippians
he plucked victory for the American
army from the jaws of defeat and wrote
his name in imperishable letters in the
military annals of his country, on
ward through the Senate in its pal
miest day, onward through the cabinet
council chamber, and upward to the SUI
preme rulership of millions of freemen
IN a crisis never to be repeated nor paral-
leled. LII this were all. surely, surely it
were more than enough to fill the Wild
est dream of the proudest ambition
But. ineffably glorious as is the career
in action thus swiftly glanced upon. the
life of slow martyrdom began ut Fort
ress Monroe, with all the attendant
pangs and terrors and agonies of vicari-
Gus suffering, and only now, at length,
emerging uneclipsed through all the
storms of calumny and hate that beat
upon his naked head-a life whose forti-
ttlde, whose dignity. whose patience and
whose unquenchable devotion to the
truth and the right, as he saw them. and
as we saw them-what, what shall he
said of that pitifully painful and heroic
chapter of this life.
IL Is enough, Mr.. Chairman: it is
cough, ladies and gentlemen: it is enough,
most Industrious and venerable sir, that at
last the clouds have lifted. the mists have
misted into translucent air, the shadows
have disappeared. the long night has